Rector (ecclesiastical)

A rector is, in an ecclesiastical sense, a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations, and in Islam.

In contrast, a vicar is also a cleric but functions as an assistant and representative of an administrative leader.

In ancient times bishops, as rulers of cities and provinces, especially in the Papal States, were called rectors, as were administrators of the patrimony of the Church (e.g. ). The Latin term was used by Pope Gregory I in Regula Pastoralis as equivalent to the Latin term (shepherd).

In the Roman Catholic Church, a rector is a person who holds the office of presiding over an ecclesiastical institution. The institution may be a particular building—like a church (called his rectory church) or shrine—or it may be an organization, such as a parish, a mission or quasi-parish, a seminary or house of studies, a university, a hospital or a community of clerics or religious.

If a rector appointed as his employee someone to perform the duties of his office, i.e. to act for him "vicariously", that employee was termed his vicar. Thus, the tithes of a parish are the legal property of the person who holds the office of rector, and are not the property of his vicar, who is not an office-holder but a mere employee, remunerated by a stipend, i.e. a salary, payable by his employer the rector. Thus, a parish vicar is the vicarious agent of his rector, whilst, higher up the scale, the Pope is called the Vicar of Christ, acting vicariously for the ultimate superior in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law, for the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, explicitly mentions as special cases three offices of rectors:

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